Training supervisors in a collaborative team approach to promote peer interaction of children with disabilities in integrated preschools.
A single BST workshop for supervisors doubled interactive play among preschoolers with developmental delays.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Rasing et al. (1992) trained preschool supervisors with a one-day BST package. The package had a manual, live models, and role-play with feedback.
After training, supervisors coached teachers to help kids with developmental delays play with typical peers. The researchers tracked child play and teacher help across indoor and outdoor sessions.
What they found
Interactive play doubled for children with disabilities once supervisors coached teachers. Teachers also gave more prompts, praise, and setup help.
The gains moved to outdoor play without extra training. The multiple-baseline design showed the change happened only after each supervisor got the BST.
How this fits with other research
Cruz et al. (2023) later used the same BST steps with BCBAs who supervise therapists. Both studies show that training the boss lifts staff skills, whether the staff are preschool teachers or ABA therapists.
Matson et al. (2009) moved the idea to adult day-hab staff serving clients with dual diagnoses. Peer-to-peer BST, not supervisor-to-teacher, still boosted positive staff interactions, proving the method travels across ages and settings.
Shin et al. (2021) swapped supervisors for parents. The same brief BST package (tell, show, practice, feedback) let parents run accurate discrete trials at home. Together the papers say: whoever is in charge—supervisor, teacher, parent—BST works.
Why it matters
If you run an inclusive preschool, train your head teachers with BST. One short session lets them coach aides to prompt, model, and praise peer play. Kids with delays get twice as many back-and-forth turns, and the skill sticks outside. No extra toys or staff are needed—just good supervision.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Three supervisors of integrated preschools were trained in a collaborative team approach to encourage resource and classroom teachers to develop strategies that promote peer interaction of all children, including children with disabilities. The focus of classroom teachers' behaviors and the interactive play of children with disabilities were measured daily in both a training (indoor play period) and a generalization (outdoor play period) setting. In a multiple baseline design, supervisors were individually trained in a collaborative team approach using a manual, modeling, and role playing; then they implemented the approach with classroom and resource teachers. We found that after supervisor training, classroom teachers increased their behaviors directed towards children with disabilities and decreased their behaviors directed towards nondisabled children. Moreover, we found a doubling of the interactive play of children with disabilities and, for two of the three classes, an increase in the interactive play of comparison children, randomly selected by the classroom teachers. Changes in both teachers' and children's behaviors were also found in the generalization setting. The implications of the results for interventions in community settings are discussed.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 1992 · doi:10.1901/jaba.1992.25-385